1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a cable guiding device, more particularly, and to a cable guiding device for a winch.
2. Description of the Related Art
A winch is a vehicle-carried apparatus mainly used for vehicle rescue, loading or unloading, which can be mounted on a vehicle such as an engineering vehicle, an off road vehicle, and SUV sports vehicle.
FIG. 8 shows a conventional cable guiding device 200. The conventional cable guiding device 200 comprises a base 203, an upper guiding roller 201 and a lower guiding roller 202 which are supported rotatably on the base 203 respectively. The cable guiding device 200 is generally disposed in front of a winch (not shown) in use, and the longitudinal direction of the cable guiding device 200 (i.e., the axial direction of the upper and lower guiding rollers 201 and 202) is substantially consistent with the axial direction of a drum of the winch. The free end of the cable is extended though a gap Ga between the upper and lower guiding rollers 201 and 202, so as to connect with an object to be dragged.
The conventional cable guiding device has at lease the following disadvantages. Firstly, the cable moves along the longitudinal direction (i.e., the axial direction of the drum) during winding or unwinding, so that the cable will move in the longitudinal direction relative to the upper and lower guiding rollers 201 and 202. Therefore, the lengths of upper and lower guiding rollers 201 and 202 should be adapted to the moving distance (i.e., the length of the drum in the axial direction thereof) of the cable in the longitudinal direction, so that the upper and the lower guiding rollers 201 and 202 are large in size, and the manufacturing thereof are difficult and high in cost. Secondly, the cable moves in the longitudinal direction relative to the upper and lower guiding rollers 201, 202 during winding and unwinding, so that sliding friction occurs in the longitudinal direction between the cable and the surface of the upper guiding roller 201 as well as the surface of the lower guiding roller 202. Therefore, the cable and the upper and lower guiding rollers are abraded, thus reducing the service lives thereof. Thirdly, the cable will be loose if no load is applied to the free end of the cable during winding of the cable onto the drum, so that the cable could not be wound tidily onto the drum, thus causing the cable to be in disorder, which results in damaging the cable, reducing the service life of the cable, and even damaging the winch.